Disclaimer: These two were hatched from the collective brain
of CLAMP. Not mine.

Spoilers: I don't think so, but it is set during the Shurano
arc. I intend to write a few short stories based on the adventures of
Kurogane and Fai in Yasha territory, with a focus on the language
barrier because I love teaching, languages, and cross-cultural
confusion. Yummy.

Rating:
For all the stories as a whole
(language, some violence... possible "adult situations." Oh ho
ho.)

The moonlight seeped in through an opening on the cave's roof,
illuminating the rabbit Kurogane balanced in one hand as he very
carefully attempted to skin it with his long sword. A breeze
whistled through the cave, but other than that, it was blessedly
silent.

Kurogane sighed. This was, of course, temporary. Fai had left the
shelter to fetch water to boil dinner in, but he would inevitably
return and murder the silence with that mix of mangled Japanese and
his own strange language. Fai was inconsiderate that way.

During the few weeks he had been stuck wandering the wilderness alone
with the damned insane mage and no walking pork-bun
translator, Kurogane had managed to beat a few key phrases of
Japanese into Fai's flighty brain while they hunted for adequate
shelter and scrounged the scrubby wasteland for scrawny prey
(tonight's menu: mutant fire-breathing bunny rabbit, complete with
scales.) Key phrases being: monster, run, shut up, sleep, food, and
water. And of course, his own personal favorite: "I will
kill you." Fai had learned that sentence - his first complete
sentence of Japanese - with surprising speed. Regardless, Kurogane
had never wanted to be a language teacher, of all things: to a ninja,
silence was a weapon just as his sword was. A ninja who couldn't
maintain his silence couldn't sneak up on his enemy and neatly
relieve him of his head. A ninja who chattered exposed his thoughts
and vulnerabilities to his enemies. Plus Kurogane simply thought talk
was overrated. Usually his glare was sufficient to convey everything
he wanted to say and a whole lot more efficient.

Hell, he hadn't even wanted to be a sword teacher to Shaoran
and he liked cutting things. But one of them had to learn the
other's language, and it made sense that it would be Fai. It was
Fai's Big Wish, after all, to never return to Celes, and thus
Kurogane did not believe they would be needing the language anytime
soon if the Space Time Bitch did her job properly (although Kurogane
was having serious, justifiable doubts in her abilities at the
moment.) Secondly, many of the worlds they had been dragged through
so far seemed to use some variant of Japanese. Kurogane knew this
because while Mokona translated all the speech for them
automatically, the translation did not extend to the written word.
Yet kanji was widespread enough that Kurogane could continue
reading the serial installments of Maganya (with a little
help from the brat now and then.) Judging from Fai's occasional
remarks, though, they had not yet come across any worlds that used a
writing system he was familiar with.

Finally, Fai was a wizard, or
a recovering wizard or whatever, and Kurogane knew from
association with his own mother and Tomoyo that magic users regularly
learned all sorts of spells, many in nonsensical languages (it was
easy for Kurogane to see why making up languages would appeal to the
crazy sort like Tomoyo and Fai – it was like being part of a
twisted club with its own special, useless secret handshake.)
Therefore, learning a real language with logical rules should
be a piece of cake for Fai. Right?

"ku-RO-ga-NE-WOO-WOO!"

Or not. Kurogane winced at the horrible mutilation of his
name, wishing that he could rip his eardrums out temporarily. The
ancestor-shaming name mutilation was his great, glaring failure as a
teacher of language. He had tried repeatedly to teach Fai to
pronounce his name correctly, but Fai had not yet reproduced it to
his satisfication, not even once. The ninja suspected that Fai was
being purposefully perverse tonight, and thus he punished Fai by
pretending to be too preoccupied with the mutant-bunny to look up
as Fai traipsed into the cave, cheerfully swinging the bucket of
water. The wizard looked slightly disappointed, then shrugged and
started quietly chattering to himself as he began striking two rocks
together in order to start a cookfire.

The
ninja growled to himself as he gutted the mutant bunny with a bit
more force than necessary. In retrospect, he wasn't terribly
surprised to realize that Fai's native language really annoyed
him. If languages were a reflection of a culture (as Tomoyo had once
suggested), Fai's entire culture was mentally disturbed: he spoke a
language that sounded as if it were stuck on a see-saw. Up-and-down,
up-and-down. The language was also full of clusters of consonants
that sounded like metal in one's mouth, although this was balanced
out partially because Fai's voice was ridiculously soft like a
noblewoman's. Japanese, on the other hand, was even, steady,
disciplined, with the right amount of vowels sprinkled throughout it
to give a nice, fluid sound. Not at all like Fai's language.

"ku-RO-ga-MO- wa-NO..."

Oh hell. The wizard was making up songs with his name. Very bad
songs. He hadn't wanted to play teacher tonight, but Fai was his
pupil nonetheless and his honor was at stake. A vein started
throbbing in his forehead, pulsating to the beat of Fai's hideous
song.

"-ku-wan-KOOO--!"

Kurogane's arm shot out and he grabbed Fai by the wrist, abruptly
ending the silly song. "Stop that," the ninja growled as Fai's
eyes widened in shock. "That is NOT how you say my name. You don't
get to say my name in any form until you can pronounce it
correctly at least once." Fai blinked at him in confusion and
Kurogane frowned, running through a mental tally of vocabulary. He
had taught the ex-wizard "you," "don't," "my," "name,"
and "no" (although "no" required constant reteaching), but
probably not "pronounce" and "correctly," and he wasn't sure
how he could teach those words either. Fai didn't know enough
Japanese for Kurogane to explain that Japanese was a language that
weighted syllables equally, but Kurogane knew that Fai wasn't going
to realize it on his own.

Kurogane furrowed his eyebrows in concentration as he thought of a
new approach. He loosened his grasp on Fai's wrist and cupped it
instead, then took the index finger of his other hand and held it
front of Fai's face. "Watch." Kurogane rhythmically tapped his
index finger on Fai's wrist as he slowly said the syllables of his
name, a tap for each syllable. "Ku-ro-ga-ne. Ku-ro-ga-ne."

Fai's mouth rounded in surprise, and Kurogane saw a flicker of
realization in the wizard's eyes. "Ku-ro-ga-ne?" he offered
hesitantly.

"Yes, good." Kurogane gave Fai a small smile (only because
it was the easiest way to show approval). Encouraged, Fai repeated
his name several more times with increasing confidence then began to
recite other Japanese words, taking care to emphasize the syllables
equally.

The ninja allowed himself to gloat in this minor victory. Now if Fai
mangled his name, he would know it was intentional and he
would enjoy beating the crap out of the wizard. If he could manage to
catch him: Fai was fast. He probably had lots of practice running
from pissed off people in his own world, Kurogane speculated as he
examined Fai's captured hand. His skin was soft, but Kurogane sensed
the wiry strength of an athlete lurking in his long, graceful
fingers. They were a little cool, though, and Fai's coat sleeves were
damp. Silly wizard had probably been careless and gotten wet in the
stream; he didn't possess an ounce of common sense. Maybe he should
take the wizard's coat off so he wouldn't catch a damn cold; the
nights were always cold here and he was too skinny to have decent
insulation. It would be a pain to try to keep the fire going all
night with the breeze. Maybe he would just sleep next to Fai to keep
him warm. It was better than listening to him whine about being cold,
and Fai wasn't unpleasant to touch.

Kurogane quickly turned his back so Fai wouldn't see his hot cheeks.
"I, uh, forgot about the rabbit." He scooped the mutant rabbit
up from where it lay neglected and pitiful in the dirt; he had
dropped it earlier when Fai's songs pissed him off. The ninja busied
himself with finishing the gutting of the rabbit. During dinner, he
was careful to avoid eye contact with Fai and only grunted when Fai
jabbered to him.

His cheeks were still burning when he lay down to sleep (not
anywhere close to Fai, not even within poking-with-a-long-sword
distance.) How had he gone from relishing the idea of beating Fai
senseless to planning a snuggly-slumberfest with him?

Kurogane agonized over this for several sleepless hours until he
struck upon the obvious answer and solution:

He would definitely have to start boiling the drinking water.

Notes:

I really appreciate feedback! I use comments to improve my writing.
Please let me know if Kuro-min is reasonably in character (I
exaggerated a bit for humor, but I hope he's still recognizable as
Kurogane.)

I'm continuing with my idea from Child of Celes about Fai's
culture being similar to Russia. Russian is definitely a language
that uses stresses and lots of consonants, and I think it does seem

"harsh" compared to Japanese (so does English for that matter.)
A few sound files of Russian are posted in my LJ (see profile) for
the curious.

Why is speaking syllables with equal weight a big deal to Japanese?
One reason is that they have difficulties hearing unstressed
syllables if there are stressed syllables in a sentence (For example,
after meeting Americans for the first time, the Japanese believed the
Americans were calling themselves "Merikans" because Americans
stress the word "a-ME-ri-kans." There is so much stress on the
second syllable that the Japanese heard that and not the quieter "a"
syllable.) Your ears are accustomed to catching particular sounds and
patterns, so you usually have to train your ears in order to pick up
on foreign ones.

Kurogane seems to know a bit more about language than the typical
ninja would. My theory: Tomoyo receives ambassadors and visitors
frequently and has probably taught her favorite ninja a little about
their cultures, including language. Kurogane's impetus for learning a
bit about languages? So he can spy on visitors and figure out if
they're plotting something. I bet he would be the type to want to
learn to curse people out in their own language too. XD

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